Prosperity and happiness would be easy to achieve if we could make
correct decisions all day long. Imagine how efficient we would become if
we never succumbed to seductive lies. How far could we go if we never
got distracted by irrelevancies? How much would we profit if we never
wasted time chasing what cannot be accomplished?

Why entrepreneurship is safer than passivity

An exalted view
of permanence and safety can be a constant source of erroneous choices.
Human beings seem to suffer from a persistent cognitive distortion that
makes them favour all things that are tall, wide, and long. If you think
about it, you will find few exceptions to this misconception.

The
groundless preference for tall, wide, and long applies equally to space
and time. In cities, residents like tall buildings better than small
houses. In the countryside, hotels are built next to wide lakes, not
little streams. In literature, readers prefer long novels to short
stories.

Our belief in permanence and safety is the culmination
of our cultural bias towards everything tall, wide, and long. Children
stories such as Three Little Pigs teach infants the desirability of
solid homes. Career advisers encourage youths to choose well-established
professions. Dietitians recommend patients to keep a constant weight.

More often than not, the safe answer is the wrong one

Safety
is presented as the perfect answer to all questions. It is the one
solution that fits all types, the one preference that always satisfies.
Temporary approaches are considered unwise. Anything transient is to be
revised; anything incomplete, despised. Long live the mirage of
permanence and safety.

How wrong and how historically false. The
truth is that human beings have been leading predictable lives for less
than 10.000 years. During the ten-times larger period that preceded
agriculture, men and women had few routines and were, in certain
aspects, much better off.

Prehistoric hunter-gatherers moved
around frequently, carrying their household items with them. A varied
diet and daily exercise kept them healthy. Tribes rarely stayed long in
one place; their changing habitations made them difficult targets for
parasites.

In those days, man lived on the alert. The world was
unsafe; the environment, disorderly; man's attitude, entrepreneurial.
Each season brought him new challenges, each territory fresh scents and
herbs. To danger, he reacted with prudence; to opportunities, with
self-reliance.

Safety made its entrance in man's life together
with agriculture. Land cultivation and animal domestication brought us a
steady supply of wheat, rice, corn, and cheese. On the other hand, they
also brought us smallpox, influenza, malaria, measles, lice, and
vermin.

As soon as human beings built permanent dwellings, rats
became their companions. Insects multiplied fed by our blood. Bacteria
found a fertile ground to grow; viruses procreated and mutated. Sickness
turned to epidemic, illness to pandemic, and disease to morbidity.

Understanding the downside of safety

Safety
possesses a downside of which many people become aware only when it's
too late. Routine has advantages, but it can blind you to innovation.
Predictability has benefits, but it can render you passive. Steadiness
has charms that can make you forget to profit from the present day.

Viewing
regularity as supreme virtue can lead to the demise of independent
thinking. The idea of permanence will keep you down if you let it
overrule your perception of reality. If you trust routine too strongly,
you will develop tunnel vision. If your entrepreneurial skills wane,
change will find you unprepared.

For more information about rational living and personal development, I
refer you to my book The
10 Principles of Rational
LivingText:
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